1980 slant six owners -- need your help

[shadango]

If you have a 1980 slant 6, could you please measure the length of your oil dipstick?

Trying to determine if the one we have on our Volare is correct or not.......my son said that when he did the oil change he put in what the manual says as far as oil capacity and it wasnt reading right on the stick.

Lots of variable here, so I figure double checking the dipstick is the correct length would be the first step.

Thanks all!

 

[slant6billy]

Back in the early 90s after a rebuild by a shop. My slant's dipstick was lost. The kid doing the rebuild quit and the shop owner had to finish the job. So the stick and tube were incorrect and it caused big problems in reading the stick. I did an oil change and read nothing. Went to my local wrecking yard and got dipsticks out of a bunch of wrecks. I got lucky on the second candidate. Once I established the reference that day of the oil change. I knew where the level needed to be. Stay away from trucks. Some of those are longer- Vans especially

 

[shadango]

Well, I think where we are right now the issue is that the stick is too short.....or the tube is too long..... I am gonna look and see if I can just cut the tube shorter......

 

[Aspen500]

In my experience, dipsticks are not very accurate. You can take 10 different cars, all the same year, make, model and engine,,,,,,,,put exactly the same amount of oil in each of them and you'll get 10 different readings on the sticks. In other words, production tolerances are kind of generous. Same applies to all makes of cars, not just Mopar.
Another thing you have to be careful of is, the specs were written for a filter that held a certain amount of oil. If you put a shorty filter where the original was long (for example), you have to adjust the oil capacity by 1/4 or 1/2 quart. Also depends on how long the oil drains and the temp of the oil. Let hot oil drain for an hour and you'll get more out than cool oil drained for 5 minutes.

 

[BudW]

I agree with Aspen500.
Dipsticks are not known to be a quality measuring device.

No one ever does it, but been told on a new, rebuilt, used (or whatever) engine, make sure engine is dry.
Install into car and add oil and filter according to the owner’s manual.
Run engine for a bit and change oil again (just to get that last bit of trash out of your “new to you” engine, before driving). Leave filter in place for now.
After engine has been refilled with correct amount of clean oil - then check dipstick and adjust stick markings at that time.

With stick now marked correctly - after your next oil and filter change, you can monitor how much oil to add for your normal brand of engine oil filter.
Then you know exactly how much oil to add for all future oil/filter changes,

Dipstick tubes are tapped/pressed in place on block – so even how far the tube is pressed in can also affect the reading – not counting all of the other factors, like front to rear ride height, bent oil pans, mismatched dipstick parts, aftermarket oil pans and all of the other factors I hadn’t even mentioned yet.

BudW